1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a magnetoresistive (MR) head element utilized to read magnetic information data out of a magnetic recording medium such as a magnetic disk, a magnetic tape, and the like. The invention also relates to a method of making the same magnetoresistive head element.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As disclosed in Japanese Patent Registration No. 2933916, for example, a conventional giant magnetoresistive (GMR) head element is proposed to include a pair of conductive lead layers covering over a magnetoresistive film, such as a spin valve film, at the tip ends, respectively. The method of making the conventional GMR head element is in general designed to include a step of forming the spin valve film and hard or soft magnetic stripe layers, corresponding to domain control stripe layers, on a substrate such as a wafer. A conductive material layer is then formed to uniformly spread over the spin valve film and the magnetic stripe layers. The conductive lead layers are shaped out of the thus formed conductive material layer. A reactive ion etching (RIE) process or the like is in general employed to form the conductive lead layers in this manner.
The present inventors have revealed that the GMR head element, thus formed with the RIE process, cannot accurately read magnetic information data out of a magnetic recording medium. In other words, the GMR head element tends to fail in discriminating magnetic binary data at a higher accuracy.